When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, takes the stage in the Big Apple, she's not only thinking about what humor to tell. She also carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it isn't captured for online platforms. “I would never publicly share material where I openly disparage authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for nearly a decade, departing in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she embarked on a frenzy of “revenge bingeing on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into New York’s public library.
However in the year since the president was elected again, there's been a “palpable change” in the environment, she notes. “Back home, I knew where the line was, whereas here I'm standing on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people who have lived in the country, find disturbingly similar. Opponents are ostracised. The leader demands absolute loyalty. Journalists face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He's called Xi as a “great guy”. As they agreed a temporary truce in the trade war recently, the bonhomie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed governance models became clear. And after decades of hope in America that improved relations with China may help the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing a period of societal upheaval,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at a top Chinese university. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses in order to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to events in the country decades past.”
Ever since Trump initiated the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the mobilisation of young people to execute presidential directives, or cleansing institutions of those deemed opposition, the president as viewed from China has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, though absent the same levels of force.
But since the turmoil of the early months of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has settled in the country, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Dimmer’
The most profound parallel between Trump’s America and China is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, ended up in a controversy this year, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in America for several years, after escaping the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, following the passing of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Similar to others across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced significant backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage attempting to create division.
“That event was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance also has similarities with the East.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse on topics deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge here,” noted Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at a US university. “This is that you see in the East now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of pupils informing against teachers, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for political inspiration, in part because openly discussing internal affairs in China is risky. But now, “The US is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. America’s image has declined generally.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse seems to have become dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of the nation's governance, now perceive it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of painful to accept this … but after the pandemic, authorities appears to be pursuing correct policies in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “the West, as represented by the United States, appear declining.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of shares in US companies has prompted comparisons with China, where the line between government and private industry is frequently unclear.
On Monday, the US government stated it will take an investor in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that America is entering a new era of state intervention in private industry.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. Last month, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a Pentagon policy that demanded reporting solely on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, something that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated judiciary.
An analyst, who established of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, commented: “America could descend into the worst crisis of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than it is now, and it will still be more free, open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were shocked to see American colleges capitulate to official requests regarding diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled inherently. Administrators, who are appointed by the state, “cannot refuse. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. An academic at an American college once vocal on bilateral matters refused to speak for this article. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader these days than say anything bad
